Pierre Cambronne

Pierre Cambronne (26 December 1770-29 January 1842) was a general of the French Empire during the Napoleonic Wars.

Biography
Pierre Cambronne was born on 26 December 1770 in Nantes in the Kingdom of France, and joined the Grenadiers of the French Army in 1792 at the age of 22. He served in the Austrian Netherlands, Vendee, Ireland, and Italy during the two French Revolutionary Wars. In 1806 he was promoted to Colonel after the Battle of Jena in the Napoleonic Wars, and four years later he was made a Baron and joined the Grande Armee during the Peninsular War. Cambronne led grenadiers in the 1813 campaign at Bautzen, Dresden, and Leipzig and became a general after the battles. Cambronne accompanied Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte into exile in 1814 as a Major of the Imperial Guard, and he assisted him in the 1815 Hundred Days campaign. At the Battle of Waterloo, he was wounded, but led the last Old Guard unit on the battlefield. When General Charles Colville demanded that he surrender, he responded by yelling "Merde!" at him and was wounded and captured. He was tried for treason but defended by a royalist, and was not punished. He married the Scottish nurse that cared for him after he was wounded at Waterloo, and died a Brigadier and Viscount in Nantes in 1842.